JUST 10 weeks ago, when John Kerry came out of nowhere to vault ahead of the Democratic presidential field and leave his rivals choking in his dust, conventional wisdom had it that President Bush was certainly a goner and that Kerry should start writing his inaugural address.

Now, with Bush showing surprising resiliency in the face of probably the most politically damaging months of his presidency, some Democrats are starting to push the panic button.

The New York Times front-pages party worries that its presumptive nominee is “struggling to find a theme.” The Village Voice showcases a demand that “John Kerry Must Go.” The Washington Post asks, “Is It Too Soon to Panic? Evidently Not.”

I’ve heard of volatile electorates, but this is ridiculous.

It seems a lot of Democrats and analysts just plain forgot the reasons why, until recently, Kerry’s candidacy – widely heralded as a shoo-in from the moment he first announced – had collapsed in a heap, leaving him written off as so much political roadkill.

Three weeks before the New Hampshire primary, Kerry was running at just 10 percent in the polls there. His campaign didn’t revive until Democrats – terrified that front-runner Howard Dean was a guaranteed loser come November – began looking for an alternative.

They settled on Kerry, mostly because of his resume: His decorated Vietnam service made him the perfect Democrat to stand up to Bush on national-security issues – especially as the economy began to pick up, removing it as a campaign issue.

In short, Kerry was considered the best candidate for one reason: He was viewed as the most electable.

But John Kerry himself hasn’t changed. The same weaknesses that turned off voters throughout 2003 are still there: the aloofness and arrogance, the exaggerated sense of self-importance, the endless and embarrassing flip-flops on key issues – particularly Iraq, both this time and back in 1990.

Indeed, a key reason for the sudden party panic is Kerry’s clear inability to connect with the average voter, even as Bush is on the political ropes, what with the 9/11 Commission’s inquisition and one piece of bad news after another in Iraq.

Even now, with the nomination firmly in his grasp, Kerry seems incapable of articulating a distinct political agenda. Instead, as he’s done throughout his career, he’s chosen to fall back on his military service and his later role in the antiwar movement.

Kerry’s first round of TV commercials – as well as a full-page ad in The New York Times – deal with little else. But resumes, even ones filled with battlefield heroism, don’t elect a president. (Just ask Bob Dole.)

In 2002, Bill Keller, then a columnist and now editor of The New York Times, derided Kerry as “the ersatz JFK, who fancies himself a global strategist because 30 years ago he faced down a Viet Cong ambush.”

Keller’s not the only one to have grasped Kerry’s exaggerated sense of self-importance. Back in 1971, Garry Trudeau ridiculed Kerry in a devastating series of Doonesbury cartoon strips: In one panel, a young man implores two fellow students that “John Kerry speaks with a rare eloquence and astonishing conviction. If you see no one else this year, you must see John Kerry.” Next, one of the students asks, “Who was that?” He’s told, “John Kerry.”

You gets the sense that Kerry often thinks he’s too good for America, that this country doesn’t deserve him. His hometown paper, the Boston Globe, has written of his 20 years in the Senate that “even in a chamber known for its egos, Kerry’s [has] stood out.”

Voters certainly can sense such arrogance. As Howard Kurtz noted in The Washington Post, “To put it mildly, John Kerry has a warmth problem. He recites his positions, but . . . doesn’t connect, doesn’t seem to be speaking from the heart.”

And it’s not as if Kerry’s revival means that he’s suddenly learned basic campaign skills. As analyst Stuart Rothenberg skeptically told the Los Angeles Times in February, “We had a year when he doesn’t connect with people on a personal level, and now he’s connecting with everyone? I haven’t seen that much transformation.”

Like his Massachusetts colleague, Ted Kennedy, during his 1980 run for the White House, Kerry seems incapable of articulating why he should be elected president – other than the fact that he’s not George W. Bush and he was a war hero 35 years ago.

But that won’t be enough, so long as most voters aren’t outraged at the incumbent, and don’t feel much genuine warmth for the challenger. Which explains why, at a time when the White House is being hit by bad news around every corner, Kerry can do no better than run even with the president.

That’s why John Kerry fell flat on his face with his first steps out of the starting gate in this race. And it’s why, instead of leading his party forward, he’s the one who may end up being dragged across the finish line.